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Pyongyang denies torturing USA student who died after release from North Korea

Pyongyang denies torturing USA student who died after release from North Korea

Warren Dawson | June 25, 2017, 0:57

The casket of Otto Warmbier is carried from Wyoming High School after his funeral, Thursday, June 22, 2017, in Wyoming, Ohio.

Warmbier, an American college student, died Monday just days after he'd been medically evacuated from a North Korean prison following 17 months of detention.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Warmbier is "a victim of the policy of strategic patience" by the Barack Obama administration in a statement posted to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Instead, they said it appeared he had suffered severe neurological damage, possibly as a result of cardiopulmonary arrest. The 22-year-old was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for stealing a propaganda poster on what North Korea claimed were orders from an Ohio Methodist church.

The KCNA said the North dealt with Mr Warmbier, 22, according to domestic law and worldwide standards.

It would be recalled that North Korea released Warmbier last week for what it described as humanitarian reasons. We jumped up and down.

North Korea denies any mistreatment. A spokesman for the family said this week that they chose not to disclose his Judaism during negotiations for his release so as not to antagonize North Korea.

"On South China Sea, this is a dialogue where we identify areas where we can work together and to understand those areas where we have, I would call them disconnects, where are our understanding of the problem is very different from theirs", Mattis said.

"Why the US government which claims to care about the welfare of its citizens had not even once made an official request for the release of Warmbier on humanitarian basis during the Obama administration?" the statement said. Only under the current administration of Donald Trump, North Korea received several such requests and agreed to send the student back home "in consideration of his bad health", the statement said. "I love America", Rodman said.

North Korea hinted that Warmbier's death is the fault of the US, adding that "the USA should ponder over the consequences" of "its reckless and rash act". "Some good things came of this trip".

In addition, Congress must demand that North Korea releases every detained American, and provide the actual events leading to Otto Warmbier's comatose condition.

Warmbier however, died on Monday in a us hospital after he was brought back last week in a coma but Pyongyang has said he had contracted botulism. "Michael went into it knowing that this was a moment", a source said.

Rodman said the country has changed over the course of his visits, saying "we've seen a lot of changes", including "the fact that it is so modernized now".